Exodus Code (9 page)

Every hut and tree the fissure snaked beneath was sucked into it, chewed up, and then dragged along, crushed and crumbled in its wake. Jack’s lungs were aching, his bare legs tattooed with cuts and burns from the flying ash and hot coals spewing from the mountain. He knew that they had to get to the canyon through the jungle but he was afraid that it was going to be impossible to navigate in the fading moonlight.

With no idea where they were heading, side by side Jack and Renso crashed into the thick jungle, ducking, dodging, weaving through the thick foliage as it slapped and slugged and assaulted them.

Jack paused to get his bearings. Wiping blood from a cut above his eye, the fault line crashed into the jungle behind them, its progress marked in the crushed and col apsing trees as if an invisible monster was stepping on them.

Renso stopped and stood at Jack’s side, the fissure charging closer and closer.

Jack smiled at Renso, grabbing his face and kissing him hard on the lips.

‘It’s been a pleasure in so many ways, amigo. Now run. I know this sounds crazy, and I know I’m stoned out of my mind, but I think the mountain only wants me.’

‘But… I’m not going to leave you to die. Not when I just found you again.’

‘Trust me. I’m not going to die. Now run. Run!

Renso looked into Jack’s blue eyes and saw something that made him realise he’d never real y known this man. But even back in the trenches, he’d been able to trust Jack’s word. Renso turned and he ran, knowing in his heart it was the last time he would ever see Jack Harkness.

Jack watched until Renso was out of his sight, then he took one, two, three steps towards the oncoming rift. With only inches before the gaping chasm touched Jack’s boots, the ground stopped shaking, the cleft in the jungle began to close, the ground healing itself, leaving a path of destruction that looked like nothing more than a heavy wind had been trailing behind them.

Puzzled, Jack fol owed the line of destruction back to the vil age. He looked up at the top of the mountain, calm now, no longer erupting, a thin sliver of the sun rising behind it, capping its peak, washing it in the pale light of dawn.

Jack’s headache was no longer raging. He sat down on a pile of loose mud bricks that had once been someone’s hut. He stared at his tunic, at his scuffed boots, at his legs that were already healing. He glanced at the shel of a pueblo vil age, at the terraced fields behind it that had been churned into mulch, and he started to laugh. He ran his fingers through his hair and he howled.

‘Where the hel am I?’

Langley, Virginia, present day
‘HOLD MY CALLS,’ Rex Matheson yel ed into his intercom. ‘And get rid of my next interviews.’

He glared at Darren. ‘How did this mission become such a goddamn cluster fuck?’

The computer screen in front of them was displaying a satel ite image of the piazza at Hacienda del Castenado an hour earlier.

‘Everything was going according to plan until—’

Darren used the track pad and zoomed the video image in on the belfry and Isela taking her shot. Darren forwarded the image and they watched the minibus careening off the canyon wal , flipping over, a body flying through its windshield, then the van skidding to a halt at the mouth of the canyon.

‘As far as I can figure, the girl must have been in on it with Castenado, but I think Carlisle dismissed her as a threat because of her age. We had eyes on everyone else in the piazza. Just not her in the belfry.’

‘What happened to Agent Carlisle? He was driving the minibus, right?’

‘He was, but he never gets out. I think we have to assume the worst, sir.’

‘Shit,’ Rex rubbed his hand over his shaved head. ‘So what happened to our mark, to Donoso?’

Darren used the remote to forward the satel ite. ‘We don’t know yet, but it gets worse, sir.’

‘How could it get any damn worse?’ yel ed Rex, pacing in front of the screen.

‘Watch.’

‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heav’n of hell,
a hell of heav’n.’

John Milton,
Paradise Lost
Gwen

Swansea, Wales, two weeks before Isela’s shot
GWEN COOPER SPOTTED the madwoman waving her hands in the air shouting, ‘Distaw! Distaw!’ in the tea and coffee aisle. Glancing at the woman, Gwen immediately dismissed her as a ‘nutter’ and returned to her struggles, getting Anwen to sit in the front of the shopping trol ey. The madwoman eventual y wandered over to the breads and cakes, her shouts of ‘Quiet! Quiet!’ echoing in the warehouse-sized supermarket.

‘No! No! Uppie,’ Anwen demanded, grabbing a handful of Gwen’s hair when she leaned forward to hook the safety strap round her daughter’s tiny waist.

‘Not this time,’ said Gwen, untangling her contrary toddler’s sticky hands from her hair. ‘We’ve got a lot of shopping to do.’ Gwen manoeuvred her trol ey towards the fruit and vegetables.

Anwen was not giving up this battle quite so easily. She began to scream, arching her back, stiffening her body and at the same time slamming her arms and feet against the side of the trol ey.

Gwen pressed her hands on her daughter’s scissoring legs in a pathetic attempt to squelch the tide of the coming tantrum. It never ceased to amaze Gwen how quickly this beautiful baby girl could morph into a monster child.

‘Please, not now, Anwen,’ Gwen pleaded. ‘We’ve got to get back home before Daddy does or I’l be in big trouble. Again.’

Anwen continued to thrash and scream, cal ing attention to the two of them from the queue at the meat counter. In the middle of the afternoon, Swansea’s shoppers were not sympathetic to the squal s of a spoiled toddler. They snarled and tutted. Gwen swore under her breath.

‘Bugger off,’ parroted Anwen.

Gwen gawked at her daughter. ‘No. Bad word, Anwen.’

Great, now she’s learning to swear, thought Gwen. One more thing to add to her list of bad mummy traits. When did she start such a list? Gwen couldn’t remember and because she couldn’t remember she was annoyed with herself for even holding such a sentiment. She was a good mum. She was home al day with Anwen. She was getting more quality time with her daughter than any of her working-outside-the-home friends with their suits and their shiny, styled flat-ironed hair. Gwen couldn’t recal if she’d even showered today.

Get a grip, girl.

Gwen guided the trol ey towards the cereal aisle. ‘How about some puffs?’

‘Puffs!’ squealed Anwen, the tantrum stopped in its tracks.

Gwen laughed. Bribery as a child-rearing strategy. It worked every time.

‘Maybe you’l only need a couple of extra hours of therapy,’ said Gwen, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. She took out her phone and touched the photo icon, passing it to Anwen, who tapped the screen knowingly, flipping through the family photos.

Turning into the cereal aisle, Gwen wondered if the fact that Anwen could already use a touch pad successful y was another sign of her flawed parenting. What next? She’d be on the internet, sexting. Seriously, Gwen, get a grip. And then she spotted the madwoman again. This time pacing directly in front of her.

The woman was halfway down the breakfast aisle, tearing open boxes of cereal, holding them up to her ears, shaking them aggressively, and then dumping them onto the ground at her feet. Surrounded by piles of cereal, she looked like she was building a nest.

Definitely need a clean-up in aisle six, thought Gwen, pushing Anwen towards the mess. Surprised, Gwen noted that the woman did not look homeless or destitute in any way. She was dressed in dark jeans, a white blouse and a navy suit jacket. Her purse hooked over her shoulder, a designer brand, was covered in crumbs of Weetabix. The woman was muttering to herself and every few seconds she’d stomp her feet and yel ‘Stop it!’ to some imaginary person behind her. Somewhere along the way, the woman had lost her shoes.

Gwen wheeled her trol ey closer and noted that the woman was not much older than she was, in her early forties perhaps, and she felt a pang of guilt for earlier dismissing the woman as some elderly nutter.

The woman spotted Gwen. ‘Can you hear it?’ she asked. Her lips were pale and her mascara was smudged. She’d been rubbing her eyes – a lot. Her neck was covered in red blotches and she’d lost one of her hoop earrings.

‘You al right, luv?’ asked Gwen.

‘Do I look like I’m al right? I can’t get a minute’s peace today!’ the woman yel ed, tearing the top off another box, shoving her hand inside and pul ing out a sleeve of cereal. ‘I can hear something moving inside these boxes. The manager needs to know about it. Someone should tel him.’ The woman’s voice cracked and she began to sob hysterical y.

Gwen picked up a box and held it to her ear, feigning interest and hoping it might calm the woman. The woman stared expectantly at Gwen, who smiled reassuringly. White specs of saliva were gathering at the corner of the woman’s lips. Gwen held the cereal box up to her other ear to reinforce her concern in the woman’s plight, while gently sliding her phone from Anwen’s hands.

Anwen immediately began to howl in protest.

Startled, the woman dropped the cereal box she’d been examining and began bouncing on the souls of her bare feet. ‘Make her stop! Make her stop!

It’s hurting my toes.’

Gwen tried to reach for the woman, to calm her, but she leapt away. Now Anwen was squirming in the seat, her cries getting louder. An elderly couple began down the aisle towards them, observed the scene and backed away.

‘Cowards,’ said Gwen, snatching a box of puffed wheat from the shelf, and thrusting it into Anwen’s hands. Immediately, Anwen’s howls dropped to a low fuss while she negotiated the top of the box, her tiny hands tearing into the cardboard.

When Gwen turned back, the woman had dropped to her knees on the tiled floor and was rocking back and forth, mumbling nonsense about her feet.

Gwen crouched in front of her. ‘Is there someone I can cal for you?’

‘I just want it al to stop.’ She cradled her head in her hands. ‘Everything is too loud. Everything. I can hear myself blink. My feet ache. They hurt so much.’

Poor thing probably stopped taking her prescriptions, Gwen thought, putting her hand on the woman’s shoulder and gently squeezing. The woman screamed and crab-walked frantical y away from Gwen’s touch.

‘Don’t yel at me!’

‘I’m sorry… I’m sorry,’ said Gwen, raising her hands in the air. The woman backed herself against the corner of the shelves at the end of the aisle, tucked her head between her knees and tugged her jacket up over her head.

‘Listen, I’m cal ing someone for you,’ said Gwen, cereal crunching under her feet. ‘I’l wait here with you until they come. OK?’

The woman let out a long sad moan. Gwen took the sound for a yes and put her phone to her ear, quickly cal ing 999. While she patiently explained the situation, Anwen steadily covered herself in a rain of cereal.

Meanwhile the woman was thumping her feet against the shelves behind her, but she was no longer shouting or even moaning, she was humming, not a tune as much as a chord of peculiar-sounding notes that slowly became a low chant in Welsh of ‘Distaw! Distaw!’

‘Thanks,’ Gwen said and slipped her mobile into her pocket. She knelt in front of the woman. ‘It’l be ok, luv, someone’s coming to help you. I’m sure they’l make the noises stop.’

THE SHOP MANAGER and a security guard charged down the cereal aisle, taking in the piles of crushed grains, the empty boxes scattered on the floor, a toddler in a trol ey eating from a ripped-open box like some kind of wild animal, and two women crouched on the floor, one of them hidden under a jacket, singing and rocking on the bal s of her feet.

‘Oi! What are you doing?’ the manager yel ed, pointing angrily at Anwen.

Blissful y unaware of her surroundings, she dug into her puffed oats. ‘Christ, you’l have to pay for this mess you know. This isn’t a… a play school,’ he blustered, nodding to the security guard, who pushed Gwen’s trol ey off to the side, blocking her passage back down the aisle to the front of the shop.

At both ends of the aisle, smal crowd of shoppers were gathering, some taking pictures of the bizarre scene with their mobiles.

Gwen tried to squelch the rage she could feel rising in her chest as she stood and faced the manager. She clenched and unclenched her fists, banging them against her legs, taking deep breaths and hearing Rhys’s voice in her head before he left for work that morning.

‘Please don’t pick any more fights, Gwen. We already can’t go to Boots or to the butcher’s and you’re getting a bit of a rep at the Cwm Deri bakery, and it’s not for your taste in muffins. Try to stay calm. Please. Keep Mrs Angry in check.’

Gwen forced Rhys out of her head. ‘Mrs Angry’. Who the hel did he think he was talking to? Anwen? I’m in control. I’m always in control. She could feel her chest tightening and she could hear the manager speaking into his mobile and for a brief moment she thought she could see his words, pink and opaque, floating across her field of vision then exploding into a test card of white noise.

Real y, Gwen, get a grip.

She started to count to ten. Rhys was right. This was the closest supermarket to home. Gwen was aware that her temper had been riding close to the surface for a few weeks now. Since the terrible final days with Jack, she’d been seeing red a lot, but, shit, this poor woman was so obviously il and that big tool of a bloke had just wheeled Anwen – her daughter, and at the rate she and Rhys were drifting apart it may be her only daughter, ever – without her permission, and here she was only trying to help, trying to be a good citizen, a helpful neighbour. No one appreciated her efforts at anything any more. This woman needed her help. She did. And when was the last time anyone had needed her help for something important? Hel , when was the last time she’d done anything meaningful other than play with wooden blocks and watch bloody CBeebies al bloody day.